Fall 2017 Finals

Thanks to everyone who participated in the Interactive Cinema & New Media Fall 2017 graduate course.

Students had a choice between a final research paper (accompanied by a multimedia adaptation of their paper) or a final project (accompanied by an analytical paper). These are the outcomes of this theory-practice and critical making approach:

STUDENTS: Add your name and the title of your project/paper, with a 1-paragraph summary and online links (to your project or your multimedia presentation). See last year’s page for details.

*Scroll down for photos from the final day of class. Thanks to You and Vivian for taking photos.*

There is Nothing Here is an interactive database work that employs the idioms of the remix and video essay to interrogate mainstream media portrayals of asylum seekers worldwide. The work exists on the internet as three components: an audio interview, a YouTube playlist, and instructions on how to perform the experience (taking a leaf from Yoko Ono’s 1964 instructional art book Grapefruit). The interview (an mp3 file) and the instructions are both accessible via a public Google Drive folder, and the YouTube playlist is publicly accessible as well. The instruction manual asks viewsers to play the audio file, and then play the YouTube playlist on mute. Viewsers are encouraged to let the video play if they feel tension between what they see and what they hear, and to skip to a different video, or a different part of the same video, if they feel that tension dissipate. The audio file should play in full without interruption. Broadly speaking, the work functions as an interactive inverse to the sound-image relationships Chris Marker explored in Letter from Siberia (1958). The global refugee crisis and its representation in the media has become inextricably enmeshed within the Debord’s society of the spectacle, and by the subjectivation of the art consumer into a highly interactive viewser, I hope to mitigate that phenomenon.

Riyad Mamedyarov – David Cage’s Quantic Dream Renaissance: The Empathetic Narrativization of Video Games: David Cage’s Quantic Dream Renaissance: The Empathetic Narrativization of Video Games is a research paper that explores the emotional narrativization of video games by examining the work of David Cage and his studio Quantic Dream. By breaking conventions of video game mechanics and manipulating cinematic paradigms, David Cage and his team have constructed what I contend to be a new cultural form that remediates cinema and computer games into a new form of media that amalgamates the constructs of both. In this manner, the work of Cage and Quantic Dream signals the introduction of a new cultural form that is wholly new in its experiential approach and cinematic absorption, creating an impactful emotive narratively-driven ludus.

Chen Gong – Final Project: A Tale of Two Cities: My final project is a video project based on the paper map of London and New York City. The content of the video is the real scenes in both London and New York City. The scenes include schools, shopping centers, bridges and so on. Instead of presenting a continuous video story, I separate the video based on location. Two frames are placed on one screen: one is the scene of New York City, and the other is the scene of London. Two videos will play at the same time. To interact with this project, the audience can make their own choice by selecting a specific number or location and watching the video by scanning the QR code sticking on the paper map. The purpose of creating this project is to archive and share memory. The project is inspired by the Geo Cinema, Late Shift, and Nerve. The idea of psychogeography and Database Cinema are also introduced here.

Cierra Franco – The Modern Moving Panorama: How Desktop Virtual Reality & Augmented Reality Have Brought About New Cultural Experiences for Visitors Across the Globe

This research paper explores and analyzes how virtual and augmented realities have been incoproated into three different yet equally educational sites in efforts to attract and expand the experiences of remote and on-site audiences. An examination of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History (NMNH), the archeological site of the Roman Theater of Byblos, and the U.S. National Parks Service serve as my case studies due to their paralleled use of Desktop virtual reality and unique applications of augmented reality in order to democratize public access of their sites, revive the sublime panoramic, and participate in the new market of interactive media. By utlizing VR and AR technology to act as complementary virtual extensions of their physical locations, these three unique educational sites have demonstrated their ability to situate technology as a medium to create a cultural experience rather than simply using it merely as a tool to produce an already captivating experience.

The project will collect and archive materials on Indian film history and viewership in China. It will be an online archive of oral histories (memories and experiences in written, or audio-visual formats), material histories (posters, ticket stubs, booklets, fan art etc) and imaginaries related to Indian cinema in China (adaptations, re-enactments etc.). It will attempt to tap into online fan communities and discussion forums, and act as an exhibition and archiving site for cinephilic fan cultures and virtual communities that are presently existing in scattered, largely non-institutionalized contexts. An initial version of the archive is available here for viewing. It will be taken offline in due course for further upgrades, please contact in case of questions.

Vivian (Jiexiao) Ying–Mapping Chinese Diaspora in New York 物是人非：海外华人的纽约踪迹

The late twentieth century has witnessed a surge of Chinese immigration, and many of whom settled down in New York for its cultural diversity and vibrancy. In this project, I curate their expressed memories (literature, cinema, and other forms of arts) by anchoring the excerpts that concern specific locations to corresponding spots on the digital map. On one hand, I hope to adopt an alternative mode of historiography through making pastiche and acknowledging the comprehensive gaps. On the other hand, I want to connect Chinese diaspora across time with the same location, and speak to all the diasporas from different backgrounds: we are not lonely in feeling awkward, lonely, and constantly questing our cultural identities.

Do you want to explore New York City through the experience of Chinese diaspora during the late 20th century? Click here.

Yue Zhao – It’s Time to Play: An Interactive Version of Playtime

This project is an interactive version of the French movie Playtime (Jacque Tati, 1967). Inspired by the interactive characteristics of the original movie, I try to turn traditional spectators into players and invite viewsers to play the roles of Hulot and Barbara, thus creating a more immersive experience compared to the original version. After the selection of roles, a psychogeographic map based on the trajectory taken by the character in the movie will appear correspondingly. By constructing the new structure based on two characters and their different maps, this interactive version transformed the linear narrative of Playtime into a database narrative which provides multiple ways of approaching the story. Final Presentation document

Xueting Feng. Digital Cave: The VR and AR Reproductions of the Mogao Grottoes. Pure Land: Augmented Reality Edition and Pure Land: Inside the Mogao Grottoes at Dunhuang are two exhibition installations reproducing the Mogao Grottoes in AR and VR version. This paper will demonstrate that advanced immersive and interactive technologies, on one hand, make digital preservation and exhibition more flexible, transcending the boundaries of time and space and transforming the audiences to participants via its panoramic scheme; on the other, that their innovative revisions to the nature of digital preservation and exhibition raise a concern on the authenticity of this reproduction due to being ahistorical, inaccurate and highly technology-regulated. I used Thinglink 360° to simulate the projects and dissect my final paper.

Yeon Ju Hong: A Line Reading.

My final project is a line reading of an excerpt of August Strindberg’s Miss Julie (1889). Two participants are picked to read the lines of Julie and Jean. They are given the lines on the spot without prior knowledge of the play or of any background material for the characters. The real challenge of this performance however, is that each participant is only given his/her own lines, without the indication of where to pause, or the content of the other participant’s lines. The participants are asked to go through the process of line-reading three times in a row.

The appearance of autostereoscopic 3D or glass free 3D, is not only reminiscent of older forms of interactive encounters such as panorama, but also a step forward to further connect the spectatorship with the media. Also, autostereoscopic 3D expands the scope of media realm to be incorporated in video game, television, mobile phone, and advertising industries. In terms of accessibility, the removal of tools in the interactive experience breaks the limitation and lowers the technological affordance to a wider range of spectators. Back to autostereoscopic 3D in the realm of cinema, the implementation of the technology within the essence of cinema to present a perfect co-product of immersion is the crucial in terms of making interactive media more attractive.

Location-aware technologies can allow active user engagement with the added premise of social interactivity. An app like Lorgnette tries to encourage its users to be more involved with creating and sharing works of digital art by asking them to use the app to as a ‘looking glass’ to view the city. Indeed, LBS (location-based service) could allow convergence of tangible and intangible forms of art that can allow sufficient abstraction for the user or provide a way to respond to the existing local art scene instead of being a hapless spectator to it. The various ethical concerns surrounding the domain of digital art creation, censorship and the inevitable digital hierarchies it creates further open a platform like this to increased commercial and political surveillance. A visual prototype of this app becomes a way to access and analyze the various ways in which the practice of digital art can be approached.

Hojong Lee – “Screened” Soundscapes

Film sound and soundscape are inherently bonded. Yet they were not often delineated as intertwined fields in many eminent works. Rather, there has been a carving between research on film sound and soundscape, with Michel Chion and R. Murray Schafer’s works as the classics. To articulate this neglected context, I am planning on publishing “”Screened” Soundscapes,”a multimedia platform where participants trace and record the site-specific aural segments positioned in films, ephemeral sites, and the subjectivity of individuals. Through the establishment of this archival web, I aim to achieve the following: (1) the accumulation of sonic archival sources through pre-existing films and the recordings of soundscapes in real life (2) the multimedia archiving of “subjective soundscapes” which not only films represent but individuals hold.

(I’m working on the mobile version, hence uploaded the screenshot video for now)

The project seeks to visualize people’s memories of the New York City’s transportation system, especially the subways. Personally, this is the first time I have lived abroad, in a metropolis. I am greatly impressed by the complex system, fading wall paintings, tramps, station performances, and the art atmosphere. I am also bothered by the off and on delays and untidiness. It is interesting to think how to preserve these impressions and memories of navigating the city. Since many people may share the same impression and experiences, the subways become “Realm of Memory” (Pierre Nora), by which individual and collective memories are evoked. Therefore, it is meaningful to invite different groups of people to tell their impressions, memories, and stories about the subway, and to preserve them. Click here for the project.

Yifan Xiong & Siyuan Qiu – Final Project: FanARt

FanARt is a geo-based AR film App inspired by Paul LeBlanc’s unfinished AR App GeoCinema that could allow users to see film sequences at filming locations. We intend to use the App to guide the users to remap New York City from a film fan’s perspective. Instead of using original scenes from well-known films, we inserted some clips from fan remakes of Woody Allen’s Annie Hall (1977) in FanARt. Furthermore, unlike in GeoCinema where film clips are shown in their original version, the film sequences demonstrated in FanARt are modified with a “reversed green screen” effect. The original setting and the ambient soundtrack of the clips are removed and respectively replaced with the setting of the users’ surrounding environment and the actual sound recorded in real time. The characters and their performance are preserved in their original form.

Porn Poetry is a short film using the idea of remix to tell a love story. I mixed found footage of soft porn actress Yuki Mamiya with classical music and James Joyce’s love letters to Nora as a storyline told by a robotic voice. I intend to play with the notion of love and the duality that this term carries; a mental longing and fascination for someone, or a sexual appetite and longing for touch and consumption of the body. In this piece I show a reconciliated version of love that contains both at the same time. I aimed also at showing porn in a different context and questioning it’s place as a lower degree of filmmaking, i believe there is beauty in this imagery and that a different subtext would make it appear. Video: https://vimeo.com/246007104

Matthew Alan Lester – “Take A Walk In Their Shoes: In The Protectors (2017) and The People’s House (2017). Immersive Storytelling In Cinema From The First Person Perspective.” I am fascinated by the various means with which we humans tell story, create narratives and form myths across the world. For the purpose of this essay, I am interested in how we approach immersive storytelling in cinema from the first person perspective and why we choose to do so. I am curious about the human emotional response when interacting with immersive cinema in the first person perspective and I believe that the closer we get to becoming apart of the narrative experience the greater that experience is enhanced by our responses to the unfolding narrative. Indeed, the mythic world of the film experience is enhanced in new ways by interactive cinema leading to a greater depth of narrative experience and a deeper level of immersion in the story that is further expanded by being experienced through the use of first person perspective and the integration of interactive elements to the cinematic experience. For the purpose of evaluating interactive cinema, I have chosen The Protectors: Walk in the Ranger’s Shoes (2017) and The People’s House (2017), two recent entries into the immersive cinematic experience. I believe viewing a cinematic experience from the first person perspective is a worthwhile enhancement to many filmgoer’s movie experience, and that more attention to the value of the first person perspective in cinema is needed. I hope to share my own emotional responses to first person perspective and argue for its value as a worthwhile presentation format for story in cinema, both in interactive and immersive storytelling. Link to blog & presentation slides.

Photos from the final class. Thanks to Vivian and You for taking photos! WordPress uploaded some of the images out of order, so some editing is needed.